BEN SUC was a relatively prosperous farming village thirty miles from Saigon, on the edge of the Iron Triangle, the formidable Vietcong stronghold.nbsp; It had been "pacified" many times, but because of security leaks no Vietcong were ever captured, and it always reverted to them.nbsp; Therefore on January 8, 1967, American forces launched a surprise assault kept secret even from their South Vietnamese allies.nbsp; The plan was to envelop the village, to seal it off, to remove its inhabitants, to destroy its every physical trace, and to level the surrounding jungle. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Jonathan Schell accompanied the operation from its beginning to its successful but dismal end, and reports it in depth as he saw it.nbsp; This time no one slipped away.nbsp; The story of the bewildering task of separating the V.C. from ordinary villagers is the dramatic core of the first part of this book. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;The 3,500 villagers were moved to a refugee camp in Phu Loi, a barren, treeless "safe" area, with only what possessions they could carry.nbsp; The bulldozers went to work and flattened every building.nbsp; For security reasons no advance preparations had been made, and the move became a human and administrative nightmare.nbsp; The people of Ben Suc were farmers, and there was nothing for them to do at Phu Loi, Mr. Schell offers vivid portraits of one individual after another--women, children, old men--as they are pacified and sink into apathy and despair. nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Here is an overwhelmingly affective narrative of American skill and good intentions squandered in a cause made hopeless by misunderstanding, by resistant traditions, and by cultural gaps not only between ourselves and the villagers, but between them and the Saigon government.nbsp; Mr. Schell's report is devastating.